Mark Patinkin: Wednesday morning, the governor will be back at work

Tuesday

The governor is not superstitious, but Election Day is another matter.

And so before she left her East Side home Tuesday to vote, Gina Raimondo fixed a donkey-shaped rhinestone pin to her lapel.

It was lent to her Sunday morning after church by Alice Cotter, 78, a fellow congregant at St. Raymond’s, on Providence’s North Main Street.

Both Cotter and her mom had worn it while voting, and she assured the governor it would bring grace.

It is hard to measure the electoral power of a lapel pin, but voters like Alice Cotter believed in Raimondo enough to give her a second term as the state’s first female governor.

Cotter gave a revealing reason. She knows Raimondo’s popularity ratings were low, but she admires her for taking on unpopular issues, like the pension overhaul.

Another congregant, Diane DiSanto, 72, said the same as Raimondo greeted folks at the church's basement bazaar.

“I’m an educator and in the teachers' retirement fund," said DiSanto, "but something had to be done, and I’m happy to have the pension that I have instead of no pension.”

And so on Tuesday night, Gina Raimondo, 47 — granddaughter of Italian immigrants, who as a student helped pay her way through Harvard as a waitress at the Galilee Beach Club after her dad lost his jewelry job — stepped onto the dais at the Biltmore to declare victory.

It marked another milestone in a political career Raimondo never planned until a sunny Sunday afternoon in 2009, when she read that library branches — once used by her grandfather to learn English — were closing due to budget cuts.

She told her husband, Andy Moffit, “I’m going to do something.” When the state treasurer’s seat opened up, she decided to leave her venture-capital job to run.

“Oh, honey,” said her mother Josephine, who still lives in the Smithfield house where Gina grew up, “don’t do that. It’s a dirty business.”

But she won treasurer in 2010, and, four years later, governor — even after her own staff had warned her to steer clear of pensions if she wanted a political future.

During her final reelection campaign day, on Monday, Raimondo sat to talk at L’Artisan Café, in Providence, and said those closed libraries were one reason for the pension fight.

If a pension system is broken, she said, there isn’t enough money for things like education, human services, and, yes, libraries.

That, she said, is why she took on the also-controversial issue of truck tolls — to pay for roads.

She also drew fire for pushing free tuition at the Community College of Rhode Island.

“I paid for mine,” people told her. “Other people should pay for theirs.”

But that one, she says, came from core political beliefs shaped by a father, who made it to college on the GI Bill after being raised in a Federal Hill tenement, then raised his own kids to go further.

Raimondo calls it the most rewarding part of politics — being able to open doors for people. While campaigning Monday, she came across examples at the Marriott Residence Inn construction site in downtown Providence.

Like Sarah Watson, 25, who went from restaurant hostess to apprentice ironworker through the Building Futures program that Raimondo has helped fund.

Scott Duhamel, an AFL-CIO rep at the site, remembered Raimondo visiting a union hall five years ago, during a bad economy, and hearing tales of desperation.

“I’m a cynical guy,” he said, “but I thought that really touched her."

He said she’s one reason he sees more cranes today in Rhode Island than in decades — and why tradespeople are behind her.

Raimondo has a policy-wonk image from afar, but up close she is down to earth, looking folks in the eye, touching their arms, even giving hugs.

At L’Artisan, she said it comes from still being part of an old-world Italian family. Indeed, on Sunday, she went home between campaign stops to put a pork roast in the oven. Her grandfather, she said, would roll over in his grave if she didn’t do her own Sunday dinners.

Asked about new priorities for her next term, she mentioned job training. And work on the $250-million bond issue she proposed to repair the state’s schools — if it passes.

Since she’s now term-limited, what about in four years?

“I have no interest in Washington,” she said. “I want to be in Rhode Island.” She said there can be such a thing as life after politics.

One more question: Will she now take time off, go somewhere like Disney World?

Gina Raimondo shook her head. Campaigning, she said, is a means to an end. She planned to be back in her State House office Wednesday morning.

Mark Patinkin’s columns run Sundays and Wednesdays.

mpatinki@providencejournal.com

(401) 277-7370

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